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Thursday, November 10, 2011

A brief interlude with the uses of Plantain...

Well, yes, I’ve been “bad” and have not written much
beyond my introduction. Things at my
house often seem to get, um, beyond the normal.
What follows is a good example of
this.

Things that happened since I’ve attempted this project
include preparing for the MMNP Preserving the Harvest Day (will write that one
up soon! Really!), getting ready for an
event HM 10th did at Wayside Inn called Battle of Red Horse Tavern –
that one even included some sewing. I’ll
be writing that one up as well. More
typically, this is what goes on:
Saturday night after the MMNP program I get home, change my clothes and
notice a funny black spot on my calf. It
itches and burns. It’s obviously an
insect bite but it doesn’t look like a tick bite, which, unfortunately, I’m
overly familiar with. Plus, there’s no
tick. I put some salve on it and a bandage
on it. Overnight it gets larger with a
spreading irregular red patch below it. I have a digital microscope to check
out the bite with. I can see two brown
fang marks amidst some infection. I also
have a day-long odd feeling headache and really stiff shoulders, which is odd
since I didn’t sleep in a bad position or do anything out of the ordinary to
make me feel that sore. It’s a funny
kind of stiffness as well. I have a
hunch (I was standing right by an old woodpile at MMNP) and check it out – hunch verified.
I have a brown recluse spider bite.
The headache, sore shoulders and bite appearance match the symptoms described
and images on several medical websites. Good thing I was wearing my thick wool socks! I don't think too much venom got through the wool.

So, I get some plantain, which I had talked about to so
many people the day before. I often
found myself explaining how plantain, Plantago
lanceolata or Plantago major, is
not related to the plantain banana-thing you find in the grocery store. It's a plant that grows pretty close to the ground in compacted soil. Brought with the English settlers to North America. Now I get to use plantain in one of the ways
it was actually used in the 18th Century, as a poultice for drawing
out infection or venom. I smashed it up
and applied it to the bite, holding it on my 21st Century
Band-Aid. It worked, and drew most of
the poison out but not all. It reduced
the itch and completely got rid of the red area spreading from the venom. I didn’t end up with any necrosis, but the
infection wouldn’t go away, either, even with Bacitracin. By
Friday I was at the doctor’s office where the doc put more Bacitracin on the
bite and wanted me to take systemic antibiotics for a bit the size of a pencil
eraser that was clearing up. Um, no.

In the midst of all this I’m making my younger daughter a
Boudicca costume for Halloween out of some unusable-for-18th
-Century wool someone gave me, having an almost-fight on the new 18th
Century Life list about women riding horses (more on that one, too), getting
ready for the Battle of Red Horse Tavern on the 29 Oct,and making a
craft for the local homeschool group Halloween party (ghosts made from circles
of white cloth, cotton balls and string.
Very popular.). By this time, snow’s in the forecast so I’m busy making
a new kerchief for extra warmth and adding some length to a wool flannel gown I
made a wee bit too short in April for Battle Road. Also,
I have to exercise the horse five to six days a week and homeschool the
girls. The horse is highly amused with
the 18th Century kit when she’s seen it, but that’s another story. Of course, the next thing that happens is the
snow storm, no electricity, now this week, several trips to the dentist for a
lost filling. I live in Mendon and the
dentist is in Sudbury. That’s been a fun 4+ hours of driving.

And the spider bite?
It’s much better, especially after I put a paste of green clay and Echinacea purpurea tincture on it to draw out the
last of the venom and dry up the infection (Echinacea
would be the Native American remedy for venomous bites). It’s almost gone and barely hurts now. Most brown recluse bites take four to six
weeks to heal, so I’m very pleased with two and a half weeks to three weeks of
healing. It also looks like I’ll have
minimal scarring. I’m hoping it’s back
to normal family chaos next week so maybe I can squeeze in a blog post about 18th
Century or reenacting type things!

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What is this all about?

We are chronicling the preparation for an event at Minute Man National Park during the summer of 2012 - A Muster Day 1773.

There are 10 pages which will follow the process and progress of getting ready by 10+ individuals, ranging from newcomers to experienced seamstresses. A wide range of ages from 2 to 50+ will be represented as well as an assortment of social strata.